1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to information searching methods, information searching apparatuses, information searching systems and computer-readable information searching programs, and more particularly to an information searching method, an information searching apparatus, an information searching system and a computer-readable information searching program that are based on a document that is being read or inspected.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, various types of information are electronically stored and managed due to the developments made in the information technology. For example, documents related to business in corporations and the like are managed by a document management system or the like on an Intranet. In addition, the Internet is flooded with electronic information sent by various organizations, groups and individuals.
Accordingly, desired information can be searched quickly in a simple manner by inputting a keyword (hereinafter referred to as a search word) that is related to the desired information on a search screen provided by the document management system in the case of the information managed by the document management system or, on a search screen provided by the so-called search engine in the case of the information flooding the Internet.
There are cases where more detailed information is desired with respect to the information included in the document that is being read or inspected. In such a case, it is troublesome to input the search word by newly displaying a search screen. Of course, if the document that is being read or inspected is formed as a hypertext, such as the HTML (HyperText Markup Language) format Web page, for example, the related information can be acquired in a simple manner by tracing the link.
However, it is not always the case that the word selected by the user already has a link associated therewith. In addition, since the destination of the link is fixed in general, the amount of stored information constantly changes with time, and the notion of each word may change with lapse of time, it may be regarded that the information acquisition based on the link lacks flexibility.
For example, a Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-29906 proposes a technique for acquiring information related to a word that is arbitrarily selected by the user, in a simple manner, by using and transferring the word as a keyword to the search engine.
However, according to the technique proposed in the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-29906, only a character string specified by the user becomes the search word. For this reason, if the character string is used for different meanings in a plurality of fields or, a plurality of words including the character string exist, there is a high possibility that the search result will include noise. Hence, there was a problem in that there are cases where a search result in accordance with the user's intentions cannot be obtained.
On the other hand, if the user is required to input a plurality of words or the like in order to improve the search accuracy, it not only deteriorates the operability, but also requires the user to make contemplative effort such as recollecting related words. As a result, such a user interface is not user-friendly and is therefore undesirable.